Channa chaat salad (Chickpea salad)
It’s that sort of a week where I am sincerely trying to take salads for lunch. If I need to sustain on eating salads and soups, they have to be tasty! I haven’t been able to do the kind of diet control I have been wanting to do primarily because of my own lack of perseverance but also because I haven’t been getting too much time on hands to make salads for dinner/ lunch. I know, I know – ‘where there is a will there is a way’ aka ‘மனம் இருந்தால் மார்க்கமுண்டு’. So yeah, let me just put the blame on my own low perseverance and super low motivation and ZERO consistency! Speaking of motivation.. Are you one of those people who binge eat every time you land on the weighing scale only to realise you have put on more weight (despite a teeny tiny effort towards losing it)? If so, I feel better that I am not all alone in this world! :). And honestly, last few weeks I have been sincerely trying to workout by setting aside at least 20 minutes each day and been trying to reduce my food intake but the weighing scale absolutely disappoints me when I learn not to have lost even an ounce of weight :(. But for once, I am not demotivated (at least not yet) and decided I should try and have fruits for morning, salads for lunch and something light for dinner (Yesterday, I had some cucumber & kancheepuram idli and I am hoping that counts for light :D). I have been planning stuff in such a way that I don’t need to work on some of the salad ingredients each day. For example – I boiled a big batch of chickpea over the weekend which I have refrigerated and using through the week. Have also done the same for Quinoa. I am realising this kind of early on preparation saves so much time during weekdays and reduces the time I need to spend on preparing my salads (hopefully, I will sustain this working model :)). So here goes – after making a Kale Chickpea salad, for a complete variation that my palette demanded, I made chickpea salad the Indian way (channa chaat salad) and it was really really good. Most of us would have these ingredients available in our kitchen/ pantry and it’s definitely definitely healthy and hearty! Takes very less time to prepare if you have boiled/ canned chickpeas in hand. Do give this a try and let me know how it turns out! I pretty much followed this recipe.
- 1.5 cups boiled/ canned chickpeas/ channa
- 1 no cucumber finely diced
- 1 no small onion finely diced
- 1 no small tomato finely diced
- 1 no green chilli
- 1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
- 1-2 tbsp Sev/ Bhujia (optional)
- 1 tsp thick tamarind paste
- 2 nos soaked dates or 1 tsp date syrup
- 1/4 tsp chaat masala
- 1/4 tsp amchur/ dry mango powder (optional)
- 1/4 tsp pepper powder
- 1/4 tsp salt (adjust as per taste)
-
Make a thick puree of tamarind and dates. Add a bit of water to this if required. The consistency should be that of a thick syrup.
-
Mix all the other ingredients - chaat masala, dry mango powder, pepper powder & salt and whisk it all together.
-
The salad dressing is ready to be used.
-
In a large bowl, add the chickpeas.
-
To this, add the diced cucumber, onioin, tomato & corriander leaves and give it a good whisk.
-
Throw in the salad dressing and mix well.
-
Refrigerate the salad for a few hours before serving.
-
You can garnish with some Sev/ Bhujia for that extra crunch and yumminess!
1) Instead of using tamarind, you can lemon juice. Instead of using date/ date syrup, you can use honey. However, the tamarind-date chutney is genuinely awesome.
2) If you do not have tamarind paste in hand, soak a small piece of tamarind in warm water and squeeze the extract.
3) If you do not have date syrup on hand, use 2 soaked dates and squeeze the extract from that.
4) Make sure to add some salt while cooking the chickpeas.
Stepwise pictures
-
- In a large bowl, add the chickpeas/ channa
-
- To this add the cucumber, onion, tomato, onion & coriander leaves
-
- To this add the salad dressing and give it a good whisk
-
- Refrigerate for a few hours.
-
- Serve cold/ room temperature with some Sev/ Bhujia on top!
